Kings of Indy: A tragedy we never saw coming

Nov. 17, 2013

Abby Carroll, 21, radiated joy. / Photo by Donna Carroll

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For some reason how we hear bad news — where we hear it and how we got it — takes on an outsized importance in times of tragedy, whether it’s something as massive as 9/11 or something much more finite, such as the unexpected death of a family member.

The best I can figure is that we share stories of getting the news as a means to process the grief. The whys of the tragedy are hard; the mechanics of how we came to know about it are not.

That’s been especially true these past couple of weeks for our little family here in Indianapolis, and our extended kin in South Carolina, as we contend with a list of hard questions. Why did one of our bright young lights, my 21-year-old niece, take her own life? What could we have done to prevent it? How do we go on?

Abby Carroll spent her last weekend on this Earth in Indianapolis. And, with my wife, Tammy, as a tour guide, she seemed not just to be enjoying life, but soaking up every drop of it.

She walked around the lake at the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s 100 Acres and jogged through the Victorian grandeur of Woodruff Place. She sipped a perfecto at our favorite neighborhood coffee shop, the Tin Comet. She bought a copper bracelet at Global Gifts on Mass Ave and a skirt from a vendor at the Irvington Halloween Festival. She ate taco pizza at Bazbeaux, a hamburger with peanut butter at Red Lion Grog House and a Reuben at the Rathskeller. And she loved all of it.

In the middle of all that fun, Abby’s mother took a snapshot of her in front of our house. It shows Abby as a beautiful young woman who radiated joy. It’s who she was.

A week later, that photo sat in a frame atop Abby’s closed casket. Her death came just two days after she and her mother and grandmother drove away from us. Perhaps you have a sense of why we are left with so many unanswerable questions.

In fact, there are hundreds of things people closest to Abby have been turning over in our minds since she so suddenly left us on the morning of Halloween, a day she had plans to take another of her cousins trick-or-treating.

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A ridiculous irony of all this is that one of the reasons Abby and her mother and grandmother came to visit was to check out this new world we’ve moved into on the Near Eastside, to see for themselves this place they’ve been reading about and hearing us talk about. And let’s be honest, to make sure we were safe. What none of us knew, though, was where the real danger lay.

We knew that Abby was struggling to deal with a breakup of a long-term relationship. But she’d talked to her mother and to Tammy about it, cried on their shoulders about it, seemingly opened up about it. It was a rough patch, to be sure, but there was no sense this was going to consume her. Abby was too smart for that, too level-headed.

We also know that, as she struggled, Abby’s doctor prescribed some anti-depressants and that there is considerable controversy about them, even an FDA warning that when used by children and young people, they can actually increase suicidal thoughts and behavior. But for Abby, her doctor felt they were safe.

We had hoped that Abby’s stay with us might be a therapy of its own, a nice diversion. Her visit to Indianapolis was going to be about more than food and sizing up our neighborhood. She wanted to spend a few days volunteering here, in a part of the city where service opportunities abound. We had lined up a chance for her to serve at a day care and to spend some time shadowing at a legal defense clinic.

But before Abby could sample some of those opportunities, she felt a need to go back home to address some of her personal issues, to be in a familiar place. We thought we understood. We gave her a last hug. We said our goodbyes. We didn’t know we’d never see her again.

When word came of Abby’s death – and here’s my story – I was walking out of the Star building at the end of the day. Literally, it brought me to my knees. Then I had to gather myself for the longest 10-minute commute of my life. As I fought the traffic, I carried a terrible burden: I had to break the hearts of every member of my little family.

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I share this because it is important to know how our new neighborhood closed ranks to help in a time of crisis. Our closest neighbors agreed without question to take my 8-year-old Caroline to their house while I talked with Tammy and our two older girls. I just wanted to spare my youngest from seeing that first wave of unbridled grief.

Another neighbor who is a school counselor, Aaron Munson, advised us on how to share the news with Caroline — that we should be honest and answer questions she might ask about the loss of the cousin who had slept in her bed the weekend before. But he advised us to let Caroline ask questions at her own pace, to be straight with her, to keep things at her level. Aaron’s was a voice of calm amid the tempest.

While we traveled to the funeral, other neighbors looked extra close after our house. Still others cried with us and listened to us. All of them made it clear, once again, that this little house on the Near Eastside is our home, and these people around us are our community.

Abby was coming into a sense of what it means to be part of a community, especially the larger global community. She had traveled extensively and, as a scholarship student at Winthrop University, had even spent a semester in Australia. She had a notion that she wanted to work in global health. She was brilliant and she could have done just about anything she wanted, which makes this a loss that goes beyond her family and friends. Abby was someone who was going to add something to this world, rather than subtract. When we lost Abby, the world lost an asset.

In the days that followed Abby’s death, Tammy began looking for a Near Eastside organization that might represent some of Abby’s interests, that we could support in memorial and invite others to do the same. She found Exodus Refugee, which helps displaced immigrants resettle in Indianapolis, and even helps them with medical services. It’s just the sort of place Abby would have wanted to spend some of her energies.

Where to Donate

Donations can be made online to the Abby Carroll Refugee Health Memorial Fund at www.exodusrefugee.org. All gifts will go toward the health needs of refugees resettled in Indianapolis.

About Exodus Refugee

Formed in 1981, Exodus Refugee resettles more than 750 refugees to Indianapolis each year. The refugees have fled their country and sought refuge from persecution related to their ethnicity, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. They cannot return to their own countries due to fear and lack of protection. war and injustice. Often, the most pressing needs are related to poor health.